I have witnessed the worst game in the history of professional football. Did you see it, too? You really did? I mean, I was paid to see it. What was your excuse?

Those 32 words should be more than enough about this. We should all wake up, splash some water on our faces, and like the morning after an awkward hookup at an office Christmas party, pretend the whole thing never happened.

Sadly, however, the job requires that I write more than 32 words. So start with the facts: The Giants won their first game of the 2013 season, 23-7, over the Minnesota Vikings, and the world did not end.

This happened because the Giants finally had a good defensive performance, and because

quarterback Eli Manning finally had an interception free-game, and because they finally encountered a team lousier than they are.

That, more than anything else, is why this happened: The people of Minnesota are building a new stadium for the Vikings, only after this effort, they might want to build it in North Dakota.

So yes, the Giants were happy to get off the schneid, and rightfully so. They are still a prideful bunch, and becoming a punchline had to be hard to accept.

"I sure do feel good winning," head coach Tom Coughlin said. "It's one of those, 'Oh, so THIS is what it feels like."

That doesn't make their first victory any prettier. Sometimes, a game is so bad that it’s actually good, that you can’t look away for the sheer thrill of seeing something so grotesque. This was the opposite of that game.

You know that scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” when Indiana Jones tells Marion to cover her eyes when the Nazis opened the Ark? And then all the faces of the Nazis melted off? That's what I kept expecting to see when I looked into the stands at MetLife Stadium.

I just wasted 50 words to make a 30-year-old cultural reference. Hey, this column is officially living up to the game.

This is not to say that all the participants were bad. The best offensive player was Peyton Hillis, and that sort of says it all, doesn’t it? Hillis was unemployed last week. The Giants picked him up only because Brandon Jacobs, their previously unemployed running back, got hurt. (If the Giants were running for governor, they would own the unemployed running back demographic.)

Hillis had 81 total yards and mercifully kept the clock moving, but his greatest contribution to the night might be inspiring this wonderful description from color analyst Carl Banks: “Hillis, in the open field, looks like he’s carrying an ice wagon.” An ice wagon!

So think about that: Hillis was the best running back on a night when Adrian Peterson, one of the best running backs in NFL history, was on the field. This is because Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier decided that he needed to let Josh Freeman air it out as much as possible.

This is the same Josh Freeman that the Bucs – the winless Bucs – outright cut two weeks ago. He took the starting job from Christian Ponder, who really has to be considering another vocation after this demotion, right?

So at least there was one person who enjoyed this game: Tampa coach Greg Schiano. The former Rutgers coach might be 0-6 going on 0-16, but he sure did nail the evaluation on his former quarterback. Freeman (20-of-53 passing) had so many overthrows you wondered if he had met his receivers to see firsthand that they're not 7-foot-6.

"A lot of these plays were a hair off," Freeman actually said, and somebody tweeted that quote with a photo of Don King's hair.

But it takes more than one bad quarterback to make this worst game in history. The Giants contributed with their dumpster-fire special teams play, allowing a punt return for a touchdown that almost felt like it was in slow motion.

Marcus Sherels scored that touchdown, but he'll remember Monday night for dropping a certain Pick-6 interception and fumbled the ensuing punt, setting up the Giants at the Vikings 3-yard line.

Sherels -- of course -- was not touched on the fumble. Not even the Giants offense could screw that up that field position, and Hillis punched it in for a 17-7 lead that ended all the (ahem) drama.

You’d like to say something nice about this Giants team after its first win, but it’s hard to find much. The defense was certainly better, but that’s not exactly a big achievement against Freeman and Co. The offense still suffers from most of the same problems – a line that doesn’t block consistently, a receiving corps that’s not getting separation, and a backfield that lacks playmakers.

All this was on display, for a national audience, on Monday Night Football. Does anyone remember when MNF was the showcase for the sport? Even the Mike Tirico was practically begging viewers to switch over to something else, anything else, but Giants-Vikings.

Maybe you did. And if you didn’t? Well, at least you witnessed something historically bad, and when you splashed water on your face in the morning, I just hope it didn’t melt off.